This and that around home....

 Hubs built us a new gadget.  I really wanted to put the name of it in the title to my post, but I figured I'd get all kinds of weird comments and spam if I did.  Anyway, this is what we call a nipple bar.  T. built this box out of scrap lumber and then made individual boxes to accommodate the bottles.  He drilled holes in the bottoms so that the nipples would slide through for the lambs to reach.  They can really tug and pull on the bottles so the boxes keep them from sliding around and flying out.  It works like a dream and as you can see, we can feed six bummies at a time!  Hooray for us because we are now feeding 24 bummies!

 Here are the little fellas looking out a fence panel at me.  

Aren't they just the sweetest?

This one must be telling her friend a secret.

  

And since Thimbleanna asked, here is the Mama Sheep.  I would have tried to take a picture of me and the bummies together, but that's rather hard since they love me so much I can't do a thing when I'm in the pen with them. This is my feeding get-up....a sweatshirt over my shirt (to protect it from stink and filth and woolie fuzz and a stocking cap to keep some of the stink and flying milk out of my hair.  It gives me "hat hair" but I don't mind because it also calms down my extra-curly hair a little bit.

 

Now that lambing is behind us, we have started up The Next Big Thing -- calving heifers.  Heifers will be first-time mamas and so they need a bit more watching and tending-to than regular cows who have had multiple calves.  We have them close by the barn so we can get them in easily if they need assistance, and we are keeping watch over them through the nighttime hours too.  I've got the 12:30 a.m. check and FirstSon has the 2:30 a.m. check while Hubs has the 4:30 a.m. wake-up call.  Needless to say, we all hope for a nap time every once in a while.

 

These are the Ladies in Waiting 

(waiting for their babies to be born)

 

 I took a picture of this granary tonight on my way to the chicken coop.  It sits right beside the coop and a big stack of hay bales.  Way back at Christmastime, FirstSon decided to weld a cross and string a bunch of lights on it and attach it high up on this granary for all to see.  He hasn't taken it down, and I'm kind of glad of it.  I like seeing that cross lit up across the barnyard.  It reminds me, "The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein," and "every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills." (Psalm 24 and Psalm 50)